SpaceX wants to make Starbase a new Texas city. Here's how it could happen

McALLEN, Texas -- In the decade since SpaceX arrived on the Texas coast, billionaire Elon Musk's company has created thousands of jobs near the Mexico border, launched rockets and sprung up new homes — all around an area dubbed Starbase.

Now SpaceX wants to make Starbase a recognized city.

Nearby residents are asking for an election to incorporate the area, which sits on the southern tip of Texas at Boca Chica Beach. Musk posted on his social platform X on Thursday that “SpaceX HQ will now officially be in the city of Starbase, Texas!”

But turning Starbase into a new Texas city with its own government won't happen overnight, and questions remain, including what SpaceX and residents would stand to gain. Already, the idea is drawing pushback from local activists who have raised concerns about SpaceX's environmental impact.

SpaceX's operations are in Cameron County, which has roughly 426,000 residents. Judge Eddie Treviño Jr., the county’s top elected official, said SpaceX's petition delivered this week formally starts the process for becoming a city.

“Our legal and elections administration will review the petition, see whether or not it complied with all of the statutory requirements and then we’ll go from there,” Treviño said.

He did not offer a timetable. But if the process moves forward, Treviño said the county elections department would next create the jurisdiction to decide who gets to vote and then plan a vote.

Neither SpaceX nor local officials have said how many people live in the area who would become Starbase residents. More than 3,400 full-time SpaceX employees and contractors work at the Starbase site, according to a local impact study issued by Treviño earlier this year.

Robert Greer, an associate professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, has studied how cities incorporate. He said a city would need to create its own charter, provide services, create local ordinances and levy taxes. It could also shift the tax burden on residences or businesses.

"If you create your own city, and it’s a relatively small area now, you have kind of control over that area,” Greer said.

SpaceX officials have said making Starbase a city is necessary to continue growing the area's workforce and the company's development.

“Incorporating Starbase will streamline the processes required to build the amenities necessary to make the area a world class place to live—for the hundreds already calling it home, as well as for prospective workers eager to help build humanity’s future in space," Kathryn Lueders, Starbase's general manager, wrote in a letter to the county this week.

SpaceX has faced local opposition to its impact in the area. Most recently, they faced a lawsuit from Save RGV, a regional nonprofit group which alleged SpaceX was dumping polluted water into the nearby bay. SpaceX said in response that a state review found no environmental risks and called the lawsuit “frivolous.”

“Some of the questions that we have is what this will mean in terms of regulation and oversight by the county," said Jim Chapman, a Save RGV board member.

Musk has long been planting business roots in Texas and has spread them far and wide across the Lone Star State. The billionaire moved to Texas in 2020 and relocated to or expanded a number of his companies in the state, citing the state's business friendly climate.

Tesla's massive, 10-million square foot (930,000 square meter) Gigafactory, where the company makes its Cybertrucks, opened near Austin in 2022 and will also serve as the company headquarters.

In 2021, Musk moved his Boring Co., a tunnel construction business, to Bastrop, another Central Texas community near Austin. Musk has said he has a vision to build out a “Texas utopia” where employees could live and work. The company has its own small community of mobile homes and a store called the Boring Bodega, which serves as a general store, lunch spot, barbershop, bar and public playground.

In 2023, Musk and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott broke ground for the site of a Tesla lithium refinery near coastal Corpus Christi. Lithium is the key ingredient used to make batteries for electric vehicles.

And in September, Musk moved X headquarters from San Francisco to Bastrop, leaving the California spot that had been the company’s home since 2011.

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Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas.